Road Trip!

The weather outside is warming somewhat from the winter pattern. Although not exactly balmy, we decided to take a road trip to check out some of the campgrounds, and popular State and National Parks on the Olympic Peninsula. This is a great time of year to do this, as most sane people are not camping due to the cold. This allows for getting camping spots at places we would never be able to visit in the popular summer months. So, off we went! We drove south from Anacortes and took the ferry from Whidbey Island to Port Townsend on the Olympic Peninsula. The RAV 4 was right at home on the ferry and we had beautiful views out the front of the vessel as it crossed Admiralty Inlet.

The first stop was the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge on the north end of the peninsula. The refuge is a massive sandbar/spit that extends over 5.5 miles out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We set up our campsite and headed off the next day to hike to the end of the spit. It was really windy, but the sun was out and views were excellent. There is a cool lighthouse at the end of the spit where we ate our picnic lunch.

After spending a few nights at the refuge, we headed west then south around Olympic National Park which is largely snowed in at this time. We camped on the coast in the fantastic Kalaloch campground which is right on the beach in the Olympic National Park. This time of year the grey whales migrate north and sightings are possible from the beach. We chilled out with binoculars and chairs looking for the whales, although didn’t see any. There were beautiful sunsets and sitting on the beach with a bottle of wine was a nice evening activity.

A few miles up the road, we went to a part of the beach that had the most amazing tide pooling. We waited until low tide, then went out on the rocks to explore and look for critters. I have never seen so many anemones and star fish in my life! Erik was an expert at spotting the cool stuff like barnacles feeding and small crabs.

After several days camping at Kalaloch, we packed it in and headed inland to the Quinault rain forest within the park. We set up camp and, being a rain forest…it rained. No worries, we donned the rain gear and went on a beautiful hike along a river. Moss covers everything here. Sorry, I wasn’t able to get pictures of our hike. It was too wet to carry the phone.

After the rain forest, we headed back to the beach to the southwestern corner of Washington and camped at the Cape Disappointment State Park which is located on the Columbia river bordering Oregon. This park is fantastic, with a nice beach, bluffs, two lighthouses and views of the mighty Columbia river meeting the mighty Pacific Ocean. The campground was at the beach and the scenery was amazing.

We decided to head back to Anacortes via Rainier National Park to get some snowshoeing in. It was quite an adventure with near white out conditions at times, making it a challenge to see without ski goggles. Nevertheless, we had a great time.

They get an obscene amount of snow here.

We returned home after two weeks of road tripping. Looking forward to doing it again!